


Patterns and Repetition

by Square_Orange



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Overuse of italics, Post-Reichenbach, Slow Burn, Slow To Update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-02-20 05:34:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2416769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Square_Orange/pseuds/Square_Orange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock have been back at 221B for about a year. John goes on dates. Sherlock is a genius man-child. And everything goes unspoken between them.<br/>Over the next twelve months they encounter horrific crimes, replay painful memories, and battle with hidden feelings. Then, as often happens, a series of bizarre murders flips everything arseways.</p>
<p>Major and minor character deaths (neither of the boys, calm down.)</p>
<p>This is a major re-write of my fic "The Science of Deduction: A Study in John's Taste In Women." WIP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Underground

"JOHN. Hurry up! We need to get to Trafalgar Square within fifteen minutes and you're busy blogging; for God's sake, you'll make us miss our chance!"

John shut down his laptop and shrugged on his coat, half-laughing at his flatmate's impatience.

"Sherlock, the cabbies are on strike. We're either taking the bus or the underground, and we certainly won't get there in under fifteen minutes."

The detective intensified his livid expression and pulled his friend out of the apartment, stopping only when John managed to fight his sleeve free of his grip, and march along on his own in a most military fashion. The first "screw you Sherlock, I can do things on my own" of the day.

These little displays of independence had become routine ever since Sherlock had arrived home after being dead for two years. Needless to say, John hadn't been particularly happy at the idea that his best friend had abandoned him, causing him to spiral into a vortex of emotional turmoil, only for him to turn up out of the blue and announce his apparent state of being alive after all.

.

Black and white blurs flashed past them through the windows of the tube. Commuters pressed in on all sides, sweaty, overbearing and stupid. Noise. The awful, awful noise. John kept a wary eye on his companion, noting how the vein in his neck jumped with irritation and the ever increasing volume.

A group of schoolgirls (obviously mitching- 1pm, Tuesday, school term, uniforms) swiftly became the focus of Sherlock's annoyance after jumping over the gap and through the doors with obnoxious squeals. The two did their best to block out the shouting, until one of them squeaked when a jolt of the carriage threw her into John, and thus shoved John flat against the detective's side in an undignified sprawl.

Sherlock set John back abruptly and turned on the offending young lady. The look in his eyes could send atheists running to church.

John froze. _Oh dear God what is he doing._

"Oh, Daddy must be ever so proud of Miss Imbecile over here! Well done for getting away with all the smoking and drinking behind his back, really very well done. Have you told him about your recent visit to the doctor yet? Dad’s a car serviceman clearly, and judging by the school uniform and your accent he works in... Marty's, yes? I could tell him for you if you like. I'm sure he'd be delighted to hear about your escapades into the fascinating world of STIs. _Watch where you're bloody going_."

John stared.

The victim stared.

Pretty much everybody on the carriage stared.

Then, out of the corning of his eye, the doctor noticed a woman shifting in her seat, and peer more closely (not really staring, in contrast to everybody else), at Sherlock, and smile slightly. Her gaze moved gradually over to John. He saw her breathing deeply before she moved and deposited herself in a free seat beside him.

"Sherlock Holmes and John Watson! My God, this is amazing!" She beamed enthusiastically at the pair.

Sherlock's attention withdrew from the shocked eyes of those surrounding him and looked the new arrival up and down, eyebrows slightly raised.

"I'm in the media business, you know. I know all about you. Not, I mean, all the rubbish that was printed about you when you, you know, topped yourself and whatnot, but… Um, anyway, I'm a big fan." Sherlock simply blinked at her. John on the other hand, beamed.

"That's very kind, thank you. Not often we find somebody who still believes in Sherlock." Which was true of course, but the taller man began to notice the minute changes of John's posture and sudden friendliness towards the fan. It was usually an uneasy "thanks," followed by a quick departure. This made quite a difference. Which could only mean one thing.

The doctor pulled at his shirt once and turned towards her more.

"Hey, do you like coffee? Ever want to, I mean only if you want to, we could, perhaps meet up at some point and have… coffee." He wore his "curious" face quite openly, as if this wasn't a proposition for a date, no, not at all. She eyed him more intensely, peacocking flirtatiously.

"That depends," she began in a far smoother tone than she had started the conversation with, "On whether you know anywhere that does a good frappe we could share."

By this time the eerie silence caused by Sherlock's previous outburst had risen again to a healthy buzz, and it was only John and his new interest who heard him scoff.

John twisted around at the noise. "What."

Sherlock chuckled. "She doesn't work in the media."

John confusedly scratched his eyebrow and replied with the usual, "Care to explain then?"

The detective leaned back comfortably and crossed his arms, ready to impress.

"She got onto the train with her earphones in, then took them out and went to switch off an ipod nano. Anybody working in any part of the media industry keeps their phone to hand above all else, not their mp3 player. Her phone, however, is at the bottom of her bag, as we can see through the rectangular bulge in the fabric of her shoulder rucksack, which is far too heavy and big to be a journalist's handbag. There are clearly some A4 books, more than likely textbooks and notebooks, in said bag, and no laptop. Any ordinary journalist would simply use a notepad to take notes, and type up the full article later. To add to all this, she has a prominent callus on the left side of her middle finger on her right hand, meaning she writes far more than an average journalist, probably essays. On a side note it also reveals that she's right-handed, but that's not important. The smell of alcohol on her clothes is also telltale of a rowdy night out with friends, not colleagues. She likes frappes, rather than proper coffee. In summary, college student. More than likely a first or second year, judging by her lack of concern for attending lectures by arriving in late with a stink of booze."

She gawked at him in disbelief. John looked her over, and drew his eyes back to her face.

"But come on Sherlock, she doesn't look any younger than twenty-five, at least."

She got off at the next stop.


	2. Harpoon and Indian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock are both terribly frustrated.

 

"John, where did you put my harpoon?"

"Going fishing?"

"Pfft." Sherlock strode over to his chair and sat opposite his friend, who looked quite at peace with his teacup and newspaper, and didn't look like he needed to get up to do anything, thank you very much. "I'm going down into the sewers. Can't bring a gun down there, as I'm sure you're aware."

John folded the paper and reached for another bite of toast. "And what about the sword you had under your bed? Isn't that a little less conspicuous?"

Sherlock seemed to twitch ever so slightly. "How do you know about that?"

John set down the newspaper completely. "I made a record of your belongings about a month after you left."

Sherlock threw his head back at this, and sprung out of his chair to avoid more poisonous stares. "Harpoon! Really, where is it?"

"I got rid of it."

"You _g_ _ot rid_ _of it_?"

"Yeah, I didn't want something like that in the flat.'

Sherlock exhaled loudly. "And having a gun is fine."

"You _could_ just bring the sword."

"I'm not bringing the sword. And it's a scimitar, anyway."

John rolled his eyes and drained his cup. He could see where Sherlock was going to go from here, and he honestly was not prepared for crowds of people after all the running they had done yesterday.

"You're buying me a new harpoon."

"No, Sherlock, I'm not. I'm saving my money." The taller man deflated. "You and your saving money. What's it for this time? Oh no wait, of course, you must have met up with another girl. Taking her out for a meal? Hoping to get laid despite your terrible track record over the past four months? What _fun_."

  
  


John had started into the appetiser, just about half listening to his date go on about some holiday or other, when he spied the occupants of the next table hiding uselessly behind a menu. Eyes peaked over the top, and widened when he realised John had seen. Sherlock gave up his poor disguise and made a disgruntled face, to which John responded by turning back to his date and pretending even harder that he cared about what she was saying.

All the while Sherlock gazed wistfully in their direction, barely touching his own food, his new harpoon lying dejected on the floor behind him.

After the main course, the woman excused herself and made for the bathrooms, leaving her handbag on her seat. Once she had closed the door to the short corridor at the back of the restaurant, Sherlock sidled over to their table and shamelessly began routing through her bag.

“Sherlock, explain to me in less than five seconds why you're here, and I might refrain from killing you later.”

“I got bored and felt like following you. See what was so interesting about all these women. I haven't managed to figure it out yet.”

“Fantastic. What a great reason to ruin my night.” He settled with rolling his eyes and stabbing a foreign-looking vegetable with his fork.

"Find anything interesting, then, you nosy git?" he asked after another fifteen seconds.

"Of course I have. She left her phone." He whipped it out, turned it over in his hands, and got to work on finding the pass code. Easily done in ten seconds. Scroll, scroll, scroll. A slight raise of the eyebrows. Phone shoved back in the bag again.

"Leave. She's a lesbian."

John's mouthful of rice flew across the table like snowy bullets. "What?! Tina is not _gay_!"

Sherlock seemed quite unfazed by his blogger's explosion, and nodded slightly with that "really John it's quite obvious" face that annoyed him every time.

“I thought I recognised the signs when I first arrived, and lo and behold- She's sending some lovely, if somewhat graphic, messages to her good friend Cate. And, yes, perhaps her peeked interest any time you mentioned another woman could have been simple pride at having won you over them, but the evidence suggests otherwise.”

John placed his cutlery down beside his plate and took a deep breath. "Right. Sure." There was a long pause, during which he thought back over everything Sherlock had just said, processing it and finding that yes, all of that did make an irritating amount of sense. One thing, however, elicited a chuckle from the depths of his disappointment.

"So women have been "winning" me, eh?"

"That is what people say, isn't it?"

John looked at his plate again. "I suppose it is."

The door to the bathrooms swung open, causing John to kick Sherlock under the table in an attempt at moving him. The detective hissed aggressively as pain seared through his calf, but ever the spiteful one, he stayed routed to the spot, as if it was his right as supreme ruler of the restaurant to take this seat and defend it with his life.

John's date approached with caution. Sherlock's hand shot out and grabbed hers enthusiastically.

"Sherlock Holmes, you must be Tina! John's been telling me all about you."

"Oh… Has he?"

"Yes, quite," he folded his legs, quite at home, "And you know I'm sure I've heard about you before… Now who was it from? Oh it might have been Cate, actually, yes! Well she was saying how her new girlfriend was pretty, but I was not expecting this!"

John nearly fainted with embarrassment. Tina shuffled awkwardly on the spot, her secret exposed.

"Should I leave?" The doctor was about to insist otherwise, but Sherlock suddenly stood and extended his hand once more. "It was wonderful to meet you, really."

The next morning felt like a sluggish hell, and John watched as the minutes ticked by on his clock, unwilling to leave the relative solitude and comfort of his bed. He didn't hear Sherlock moving around much either. Maybe it was just one of those days.

Eventually, when it got too close to afternoon for his peace of mind, he clambered to his feet and shrugged on a dressing gown. He heard movement downstairs while he searched for his slippers, and feet on his stairs soon after.

“John? You awake? Why haven't you come down yet?”

He opened the door to his flatmate, also in pajamas, hair wild and unwashed.

John pushed his way past Sherlock lightly, and made his way down to the kitchen where tea awaited him, already perfectly brewed and in his favourite mug. "I feel like taking it easy today, after last night." He glanced pointedly at the detective, but took a sip of his tea and hummed with appreciation. Sherlock folded his hands behind his back and paced quietly to the window closest to his chair. A strange silence fell between the two for a moment, not quite awkward, but not completely companionable either. John cleared his throat and straightened his back to ask a question that had been scratching at his mind since he lay down to sleep a few hours earlier.

"If Tina was a lesbian, Sherlock, why did she agree to date me? Free food?"

Sherlock tilted his head, still facing away from his friend. "More than likely a stunt to give the impression of being heterosexual. A mother pressuring her into finding a long-term partner, thinking she's straight, perhaps. Might as well go along with that to make her happy. I'm fairly well-versed in situations like that."

John paused and rewound. _Oh._

"So your mother, she doesn't know you're…" He trailed off, and Sherlock turned slightly, expecting a complete question. "What?"

"What?

"What are you asking?"

John lipped at his cup in embarrassment. "Never mind."

Thankfully, Sherlock's phone shuddered noisily on his desk. He walked lightly over to it and sped through the text. A sheer grin spread across his features.

"Lestrade is out of his depth again, it would seem. A mysterious house fire. Excellent ." His mobile was thrown unceremoniously onto the couch. "Get ready John, we've got a case."

John fumbled with his half-empty mug and folded up the newspaper without any real care.

“Hold on, what about you having to take a visit to the sewers?”

Sherlock called back from his bedroom.

“Already figured it outlast night; the wife did it!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has been a sitting duck, as have most of my other fics, waiting for me to take a shot. I started in at the full edit a few hours ago, deleted more than half the original content. Shaved it down. I want to put it more on track so that when I actually continue the plot again I'll have somewhere to start from. Hopefully this could be the beginning of me actually finishing a multi-chapter fanfiction for once.


	3. A Body in the Morgue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly calls.

John dug out the first aid kit and tended to the cuts on Sherlock's face. The living room was oddly quiet again, with the curtains drawn, and Sherlock seated with his hands steeped below his chin in thought. John paused with a wet cloth in hand to inspect his patient's battle wounds. Four scratches painted his right cheek a violent red, and they were swollen and angry already.

Sherlock caught his gaze. "John?"

The doctor crouched down and shook his head slightly in exasperation. "You're bloody ruined, you idiot."

"It's fine. You needn't bother."

John glared at him without any true malice, just as though he were scolding a child. "Do you want these to get infected?"

".... No.

"Didn't think so. Now grit your teeth, this is gonna sting."

Sherlock watched his flatmate intently, cataloguing that moment in the John Room of his mind palace. It was rare nowadays for the two of them to really have a moment without an underlying feeling of numbness or even bitterness, but this here was like old times. As if he had never pretended to be dead and John still thought the light shone out of Sherlock's arse. Like it was still simply "Holmes and Watson, Team Deduction, out to solve crimes and annoy people."

With an internal sigh, Sherlock scrolled through their most recent interactions. John being unbearably distant. John flitting between moods. John spending too much time on his own.

And yet here they were. His blogger was concerned about him. He apparently still cared. Sherlock found himself smiling gently at his friend, and filed the moment in a special place on top of the John Room mantelpiece.

"You ok?" John asked quietly.

"Quite, yes." His eyes flickered to his feet, and the smile dimmed.

John licked his lips, cleared his throat, and got back to cleaning the cuts.

* * *

 

For once it wasn’t gunshots or the obnoxious playing of a violin that woke John at five in the morning. It was the landline phone ringing, held about thirty centimeters from his head. Sherlock watched blankly as his friend groaned and flailed his arms in misery, tossing the blanket over himself further in the process.

“John. Answer the phone.”

“Piss _off_ Sherlock I’m _asleep_.”

The phone continued its shrill assault, and the detective huffed out his irritation.

“But you’re obviously awake. You just answered me in a perfectly awake manner. The _phone_ , John!”

"You answer the damn thing!" John groaned, falling back towards into his pillow. 

"I hate answering phones! I always end up losing my train of thought!"

The blankets were ripped away and the doctor snatched the device from his friend to stop the horrific noise.

“ **What do you want**?!”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment before the timid voice of Molly Hooper stuttered in shock.

“ _I’m sorry, should I just call back later?_ ”

John’s head sank further into his pillows. “No, sorry, Sherlock’s just being a prick.”

A grunt of indignation was heard from above.

“ _Oh. Well, could you ask him to come over to Bart’s? There’s a body here that he should see, and I have a couple more bits... You know, if he needs some parts...”_

“Molly Hooper, I cannot believe you are willingly assisting this menace in ruining my kitchen.”

Sherlock mouthed an annoyed _my kitchen?_ and crossed his arms, staring maliciously at John.

“ _Heh, um, he threatened me that if I didn’t give him parts he’d steal my cat, so..._ ”

John held the phone away from his ear to glare at his flatmate without interruption. “Seriously?”

Sherlock shrugged at him.

* * *

"Is that... God, Sherlock it's-"

"I know. Your notes, if you would, Molly."

Glancing between both men, she handed Sherlock her clipboard. His eyes skimmed her writing before he swiped it into John's hands to double check the medical side of things. He gripped the sides of the slab and leered at the body before him. His expression was static, but John saw the subtle signs of distress- whitening knuckles from such a strong grip on the table, left foot tapping against the white tiles, and his tightened posture.

John thumbed across the notes and took in every word in hardly suppressed disappointment. "She was discharged from rehab early. The hell? Does Lestrade know about this?"

"He texted me this morning to tell me a woman was shot in the neck and he might need me to come in. Then he texted again saying they had everything under control. I didn't bother inquiring further, I was in the middle of sorting out hair samples. I assume he was talking about this."

The doctor rubbed at his eyes before searching his pocket for his mobile.

"I'm ringing the centre. There's something deeper than a simple shooting going on here, I can feel it."

"Hmm."

Before dialing the number, John looked up at his friend expectantly.

"Nothing?"

"Sorry?"

"No deductions to share before I ring these people up? I don't want to waste credit."

Sherlock stuffed his hands in his coat pockets and he rolled on the balls of his feet.

"She was after going shopping. She had a friend coming over. She hadn't touched any kind of drug apart from painkillers in the last week or so."

Molly leaned closer in fascination but wasn't graced with any further inductions.

"That's it. All I can get. Which answers another question- yes, you should ring the rehab centre, John. This wasn't a mindless killing. Somebody knew I would get involved and cleaned up, but they must have been clever enough to know what details were important."

John shook his head in disbelief after a moment of just looking at the body. "It's _Isobel,_ Sherlock."

“Stating the obvious won't get us anywhere; hurry up and ring the number.”

He made a show of observing Isobel's fingernails closely and opened his mouth to say something more, but shut it tight after some consideration. John shook his head and sucked in a deep breath.

"Just... Please be quiet while I talk to the receptionist. Actually, never mind, I'll go outside." He gripped his phone in his right hand and left without a look at the others.

Molly watched his retreating back until the door swung closed after him. Cautiously her attention returned to Sherlock, who was prodding the dead woman's collarbone.

"Who is she to you? You and John both seem pretty... Tense."

It took a whole forty seconds for Sherlock to answer in an uninterested voice.

"She was one of my homeless network. Helped out on a few cases. We had tea together now and again during stakeouts. I don't understand why John is upset; he didn't like her all that much."

"Did you?"

Sherlock gave her a shadowed look.

"No."

“But...?”

The detective made a show of unclenching Isobel’s jaws and didn’t answer straight away. Molly shuffled on the spot, unsure of whether or not she was prying into dangerous territory.

“Look, you don’t have to tell me, but I’d appreciate some-”

“She was a drug addict, I sympathised. End of story.”

“No, it isn’t, is it?” Molly rounded on him. “I’m not stupid, Sherlock. This act you’re giving off, not really caring about people, I know it’s for his benefit. You've got some mad idea that he doesn't know you better than that.” She waved a hand at the door. “I can see it in your face.”

Sherlock had frozen in place; his brain rattling with the pressure of admittance or denial of everything Molly said.

“Molly, I don’t think-”

The door swung open dramatically to a flustered John Watson.

“They discharged her on the twenty fifth. Said a Simon Miller came and signed her out, and they actually _let_ him. She was showing good progress or some rubbish. She was barely in there two weeks!”

Sherlock flashed a warning eye at Molly before sweeping out of the morgue, leaving John to give a rushed apology and a thank you. The pathologist hardly suppressed a worried sigh as the door shut behind them.

* * *

The interrogations at the rehab centre were brief and uninformative, as Sherlock feared they would be. No leads reared their heads over the next few days, creating an almost tangible black cloud above the detective’s head (and consequently over John, whom, try as he might, could not escape Sherlock’s bad moods).

After following a false trail through the bowels of London, the two men sat opposite each other; one with lukewarm beer in his hand, the other drumming his fingers against the leather of his abused chair. They wordlessly agreed through irritated huffs that this case was becoming a pest. It wasn’t quelling the detective’s boredom, and the lack of action had the doctor on edge, barely sipping at his beer.

“I am going to snap every one of those fingers if you don't stop that incessant noise." John dropped his head back in frustration. "I swear it on my pension, Sherlock."

The tapping didn't stop.

“ _Sherlock!_ "

No developments.

John made an attempt at calmly lowering his bottle to the side table, and intertwined his fingers. He stared blankly at his flatmate for a full minute before Sherlock surrendered with a growl and a twist in his seat.

“What have I _missed,_ John? All this information is rushing about up here-" he rammed his fingertips into his temples, "- and none of it gives me even the _tiniest_ clue!" He shivered where he sat. "I'm going mad.”

John sighed and moved to clean up their dinner plates and day-old mugs of tea. Sherlock twitched minutly at their proximity when the John reached across him to grasp at the cup's handle. John frowned at the movement, taking it as a further articulation of frustration.

"Have you _never_ left a case cold? We need a new one; I refuse to sit in this flat waiting for some big break while trying to stop you from pulling out your own hair!" He shook his head in exasperation, and turned to balance his own mug on top of the plates.

“How can I leave it alone? It nags at my mind every _second_! Try living with a head full of information you can do nothing with!”

“I _do_!”

Sherlock grabbed the open edges of his dressing gown and cocooned himself in it. “Don't make me laugh.”

John set down the dishes and took a carefully measured step in front of Sherlock, glowering above him intimidatingly. The younger man’s expression evolved from bitter to dumbfounded vacancy at the intrusion of space.

"You leave this. You call the Yard, you tell them you've hit a dead end, then you go fishing for something new. Clear?"

Sherlock’s adam’s apple bobbed as he cleared his throat and nodded once without breaking eye contact. The blogger seemed mildly satisfied with that and turned on his heel. He tugged his coat from the rack and slung it across his arm.

"I'm going for a walk."

When the front door rattled, Sherlock let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. He loosened his position and let his dressing gown spill down. The room was silent for mere seconds before it echoed his indignant groan as he pushed himself up and towards his bedroom.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the original version, I went into detail about the case in the sewers, and I also introduced Isobel as an original character, gave her a few chapters and everything. She was the one who gave Sherlock the scratches. Now I'm leaving that up to your imagination.


End file.
